DEVOPSdigest

CA Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Automic Holding GmbH, a provider of business automation software that drives competitive advantage by automating IT and business processes.

The transaction, valued at approximately 600 million euros, net of cash and cash equivalents acquired, has been unanimously approved by both Boards of Directors, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of CA’s fiscal 2017. Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, Automic has approximately 600 employees across Europe, North America and Asia.

With Automic, CA will add new cloud-enabled automation and orchestration capabilities across the portfolio and increase its reach into the European market. Automic’s European presence coupled with CA’s worldwide expertise and broad portfolio, offers customers a global solution that complements their existing technology investments to address the challenges of automation across the enterprise.

CA will add Automic’s automation and orchestration capabilities to its portfolio to give customers options that address their IT operations and DevOps needs on-premise, in the cloud and hybrid cloud environments. With real-time analytics incorporated into the end-to-end platform approach, customers will benefit from increased business agility with solutions that move from IT-centric task automation to business-centric intelligent automation and orchestration.

“Global businesses need the flexibility and agility to move workloads to the most appropriate locations across heterogeneous hybrid cloud environments, with continuous availability, to stay ahead of their competition,” said Ayman Sayed, President and Chief Product Officer, CA Technologies. “With the acquisition of Automic, we will deliver automation, scale work flows and business processes while reducing costs and greatly improving accuracy. This level of intelligent automation will give our customers the insights to achieve more agility and realize business value. We are pleased to welcome Automic, which is profitable and growing at a healthy clip, into CA. Strategically, it accelerates our position with its cloud enabled platform. Operationally, it expands our reach across Europe. And, financially, it meets our rigorous hurdle rates while providing the highest likely return on offshore cash.”

Automic’s automation technology underpins digital transformation by helping enterprises move from siloed automation to intelligent and orchestrated automation with real-time analytics.

“Enterprise customers are engaging with vendors to support their digital transformation initiatives to increase velocity, reliability and scalability among their businesses processes,” said Todd DeLaughter, CEO, Automic. “Together with CA Technologies, we will help organizations further propel their intelligent automation capabilities to the next level, driving the agility and speed demanded in this era of Digital Transformation.”

Founded in 1985, Automic has offices in Vienna, Paris, Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), and Bellevue, Washington and serves a wide range of customers in the energy, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and telecommunications sectors.

Foros acted as financial advisor to CA Technologies on this acquisition.

Assuming the transaction closes in early January, CA’s preliminary expectation compared with its previous fiscal year 2017 guidance, is that the acquisition will:
- Add one-half percentage point of revenue, both as reported and in constant currency
- Adversely affect GAAP and non-GAAP total company operating margin by 1 percentage point and will primarily impact the Enterprise Solutions segment
- Be modestly dilutive to cash flow from operations and GAAP and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, both as reported and in constant currency